Hunt for Tanoya: Tokyo
by Ellipsis Flood
Summary: One rainy day, a woman and her persocom ring at Minoru's door, asking for help against a malicious entity. Rated for some swearing, I guess.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Okay, I'm honest. I'm not sure where this will go. I have half a dozen scenarios in my head for this. Also, I stick with the manga, especially in terms with the end. The anime's end has way too many weird implications.

I own: Mikure, Dacoron, Tanoya and the plot.

-xox-_  
><em>

_"So basically, he wants a body."_

_"Yes. While that might sound innocent, imagine someone like him roam freely in the world. Tanoya's dangerous enough without that."_

-xox-

It was a rainy afternoon. and not many people were outside. Those who were, hid under umbrellas almost as gray as their surroundings. Under one of those umbrellas, there were a young man and woman.

"So... you _do_ know about the significance of umbrellas in Japanese culture, right?" she asked, brushing some stray rain drops off her labcoat, and smiled at her companion.

He slightly shook his head. "No."

The woman bowed over to him and started whispering into his ear, causing the man to step away and take the umbrella with him. "Hey!" She followed him, ending up under the umbrella again. "I was just teasing." She folded her arms.

"You know this is a serious situation, right?"

She sighed. "Dacoron... just because _the situation_ is serious, it doesn't mean that _we_ should be serious too."

"You're weird, Sato. Plain weird. Also, we have arrived." Dacoron pointed at the gate next to them.

"Yay!" Sato skipped over to the bell, rang shortly and stepped back under the umbrella before she got too wet. "He should be at home... just look at the weather."

It didn't take too long for the loudspeakers to activate. "This is the Kokubunji residence. How can I help you?" a female voice asked.

Sato glanced over to the camera before she openly looked up. "We're here to require Minoru Kokubunji's assistance. This could endanger the coexistence of humans and persocoms as we know it, so please, at least listen to us before sending us away."

"You really think this will work?"

Sato shrugged. "I hope so."

"Well, it's raining outside, so we should talk inside." This time, it was a young male voice talking.

The door opened, allowing Dacoron and Sato to enter the residence.

-xox-

When Dacoron and Sato entered the building, they were greeted by four persocoms in maid outfits.

"Where is this guy now?" Dacoron asked, becoming impatient. "Didn't he say-"

"I'm sorry to make you wait. Master Kokubunji is expecting you." A blue-haired persocom had appeared from behind the four maid ones. She bowed in front of the two visitors and waved for them to follow her.

-xox-

Not much later, Dacoron, Mikure and the blue-haired persocom called Yuzuki reached a living room. At the table, they saw a young boy who was eyeing them curiously.

"Master Kokubunji." Yuzuki bowed down again. "These are Mikure Sato and Dacoron."

"Thanks, Yuzuki." The boy eyed his guests curiously. "Please, sit down. Would you like some tea?"

Mikure nodded eagerly. "Can't say no to that."

"I'm not built to ingest things," Dacoron deadpanned.

Minoru blinked and had a closer look at the tall man. "So you're a persocom? I couldn't have told from looking at you. You must be a new model."

While Minoru kept studying Dacoron, Yuzuki prepared two cups of tea.

"Thanks, Yuzuki." The boy nodded at her, whereupon she left the room. "Now what is this _situation_ you were talking about?"

Mikure picked up her cup and took a sip. "Well-"

She was interrupted by Dacoron standing up. "This won't get us anywhere. I'm going to do this my way. You know how you can find me, Sato." With that, he left the room.

Mikure turned her head in the direcion of the door. "That was... odd."

"Is he always like that, Ms. Sato?" Minoru asked.

Mikure shrugged. "I don't know. We merely work together. It's not like anyone owned him."

"I see." Minoru took another sip.

"So, what I was talking about..." Mikure put down her cup. "There's this... uh... program virus thingy. Kinda like a persocom without a body... man, that's difficult."

Minoru merely nodded.

"I'll refer to him by name. Tanoya. We, that means Dacoron, me and a few others, have been hunting him down."

"Uh-huh."

"Tanoya's dangerous. And he flatout hates humans. We tracked him down to somewhere around here, but now..." Mikure fell silent, wishing for some more computer knowledge.

"You want me to help you find him. If it wasn't for the latest events, I would call this unbelievable." Minoru looked into his teacup.

"You're talking about the Ch- the blackout." Mikure mentally slapped herself and hoped that the boy didn't catch her little slip-up.

Minoru wasn't stupid though. "You were going to say Chobits."

"Yeah. I... know about things." The woman sighed. "I really hope that Dacoron's not doing anything stupid." She took a sip of her tea when there was a ringing sound. Without hesitation, she grabbed into her pocket, pulled out a rather chunky phone and picked up. "Speak of the devil." Mikure took another sip, which proved to be a mistake. "Pffwhat? Err, WHAT?"


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Wow, second chapter already. I'm surprised by myself.

-xox-

Dacoron glanced backwards when he jumped over the outer wall of the Kokubunji residence. Sato hadn't followed him.

He looked around, determining the best route, and jumped onto the nearest roof.

It was still raining, not that it bothered Dacoron. His coat was water- and stormproof, and he himself was built to endure much worse.

Not really knowing where to start, he tapped into the city's white noise and closed his eyes.

There were so many systems, most of them communicating with each other. It was the virtual equivalent to the streets of a bustling city.

Normally, Dacoron didn't interfere or even decode anything he recieved that way, but this time, it was necessary.

Checking every signal was out of question. Even for Dacoron, that would take too long. He needed to find those that were special.

-xox-

It hadn't even taken that long to single out some systems. One of them seemed to be especially promising.

Dacoron sighed and took a phone out of his pocket. He'd rather use his internal systems, but Sato had insisted.

"Hey, Sato." He smirked at her answer. "Just wanted to tell you, I've got a potential source of information. Seems to be a data bank. A huge one."

Dacoron raised an eyebrow. "Did you just spit out your tea? I'm just going to take a sneak peek. No need to worry." With that, he hung up. He could have rattled down his specs, but that wouldn't have made any sense to Sato anyways.

Instead, he focused on his target system. A data bank like that was bound to have some relevant informat-

Dacoron flinched. He had definitely underestimated the security systems. A jolt of energy ran through his body and he cringed. Within a few moments, most of his defense mechanisms were down, forcing him to disconnect before worse happened.

-xox-

It didn't take long until Sato's phone rang again. "Dacoron? You sound weird. Are you-" She frowned. "I could have warned you that the national data bank has a _very protective_ security system." She raised her eyebrows for emphasis. "Still... you okay?... fine."

"Did he really...?" Minoru looked at Mikure.

"He tried and failed. Also, he's coming back. We should get going," Mikure replied.

-xox-

Dacoron returned not much later. Yuzuki accompanied him to the office where he flopped down on the cable-covered ground. "Did you get anything?"

Minoru looked up from the screen and shook his head. "Not really. There's nothing out of the ordinary going on since the blackout."

"Needle. Haystack. What are we going to _do_?" Mikure threw her arms into the air. "And on top of that, now these two _government 'coms_ are on our heels."

"An external security system. Talk about high specialization. Explains how she could kick me out like that." Dacoron put his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling.

"You must be quite advanced too if you shrug off government defense software like that," Minoru commented, still working on the screen.

"Confidential. If you don't find anything, I could try again." Dacoron took a pair of shades out of his pocket and put them on.

"No way." Mikure folded her arms. "Simply no way. That'll only end with at least one of you fried to a crisp. I can't let that happen."

"We all want Tanoya gone. It's... oh foo." Dacoron sat up and adjusted his shades. "Seems like they're tracking me down."

"Yay," Mikure deadpanned. "Well, they should know this place anyways... if we're lucky, they'll even help us."

"You're kidding, right? I just hacked that guy... tried." Dacoron stood up. "I'm going outside. It's me they're looking for, after all." With that, he opened the window and jumped out.

Yuzuki closed the window again. "Tanoya is dangerous. Still... to Dacoron, it seems personal."

"I think it is. And I have a damn bad feeling about that." Mikure grabbed into her pocket, pulled out a pair of green glasses and put them on. "I'll follow him."

-xox-

Dacoron smirked. He had those two government 'coms on his radar. They just had to know something. He had to stop Tanoya. Or did he? What if Tanoya just wanted his freedom. What if he just wanted to live in peace? Sure, there was no way to prove that, but it might be true.

He stopped next to a radio antenna. They were getting closer, and with them... what? What did he really hope for? Why should they help him?

Dacoron shook his head and looked over to the roof of the building next to him. It was a bit lower than his, so he had a perfect view at the two persocoms standing there.

They couldn't be much more different from each other. One was a tall man, the other one a short girl. While the former seemed to be the one he had tried to hack, the latter was the security 'com who had kicked him out.

All of a sudden, the small one tried to charge at Dacoron, but was held back by the tall one. Both, however, looked right up.

"No need to get up here," Dacoron said and jumped down.

Again, the smaller 'com tried to wriggle loose. "Let go of me, Jima! He's the one who hacked you."

"I know, love." The taller one smiled. "I just want to know why."

"I don't care why!"

Then, everything went fast. She slid out from under his arms and dashed towards Dacoron, who had anticipated that. He slid a cable out of his left sleeve, plugged it in on his right arm and pulled out the rest of it.

The smaller 'com reached for her ear ports under her hair, but before she could react, Dacoron gripped her by her wrist. He pulled her closer and connected himself to her.

The small persocom's eyes went wide as Dacoron rummaged through her files. A moment later, she slumped down.

Dacoron unplugged himself, let go of her wrist and jumped off the roof.

Little did any of them know that all that had been witnessed by Mikure Sato, who now hung at the fire ladder, mouth and eyes agape, and stared.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: How am I doing this? Three chapters. Also, I kinda feel sad about this one. *sniff*

-xox-

"I know you're there." It was a sorry attempt to sound as carefree and easygoing as Jima usually was. He clung to her lifeless body and fiddled around with her connection ports.

By the time he had found and pulled out a cable, the woman from the fire ladder stood next to him. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't... I should have known."

Jima could tell that she meant it. "Are you his owner?" he asked absentmindedly, plugging the cable into his earport and establishing a connection.

"For official purposes... yes." To humans, her voice would have been an unintelligible mumbling.

Jima cursed inwardly. He lacked the diagnostic software to determine how bad the damage was, but it was more than a little glitch.

"Is she alright?"

"Alright isn't the word I'd use."

The woman gulped. "I'm really sorry."

Jima frowned. "You make me curious. You really believe this to be your fault. Just why would you think that?" His hand moved through Dita's hair.

"Would you mind discussing that somewhere dryer?"

Jima nodded. Considering the time she had been out there, she had to be drenched by now.

"Kokubunji residence," she said, her voice still guilt-ridden.

"I figured."

Instead of answering, the woman merely walked over to the ladder and started climbing down.

Jima watched her disappear from his line of sight, packed Dita onto his back and followed the woman.

-xox-

There was a taxi waiting at the alley the ladder lead to. The driver opened his window. "You took your time, miss. You know that costs extra."

The woman nodded. "The government pays." With that, she pointed at Jima, opened the front door of the car and hopped in.

Jima followed her, somewhat irritated.

"Back to the Kokubunji residence." All of a sudden, she didn't seem to be oh so sorry at all. Or it was her way of masking guilt. Jima hadn't decided yet.

-xox-

When they entered the house, Minoru Kokubunji himself welcomed them. The boy first nodded at the woman, but then he turned to Jima and froze.

"Y-you... you're..."

"The national data bank, yes. Call me Jima." The persocom smirked. Kokubunji was known to be a big nerd for custom jobs and it showed.

Then the boy's eyes shifted to Dita, who still hang on Jima's back unconsciously.

"The reason why I accompanied your... friend." Jima looked over to the woman.

"Ms. Sato's just working together with me," Kokubunji explained.

Sato. Jima checked his data again. Even with her last name, there weren't any matches. Neither for her nor for that 'com. The only thing he knew was that Dita's current state was not part of Sato's plan.

"So... could you have a look at her?" Jima asked.

Kokubunji nodded. "Of course. Follow me."

-xox-

Not much later, they had Dita wired up to several of Kokubunji's persocoms. Jima leant on the couch she lay on, looking down at her. From the corners of his eyes, he noticed Sato sitting on a chair. She too seemed worried.

Kokubunji, on the other hand, was focused on the diagnosis program run by his persocom.

Jima smirked, remembering how the blue-haired 'com had hacked her for information on Chobits. He had given her the time she needed to find the rest of the pictures. The fact that she was now scanning Dita struck Jima as ironic.

"Diagnosis finished," Yuzuki announced.

Both Jima and Sato looked up at her.

"Several portions of data have been damaged. We should be able to fix that, though. The real problem is the CPU. Approximately half the cores have been irreparably damaged and the cooling system doesn't work properly any more." She looked at Jima with a sad look in her eyes. "It could have been worse, but for now, she won't run on full capacity."

Jima smiled slightly. Yuzuki was right. It could have been worse. However, since that 'com was still out there, it could become worse any time.

"So... you can fix her." Sato sounded relieved. "That's... good." She glanced over to Jima. "You demand answers, right?"

"You could say so." He looked down at Dita and smiled again. "Are you going to give them too?"

"Well... that guy. He wasn't really himself. He was possessed. Taken over. Yeah. By the one we're looking for. The bad guy." She smiled insecurely. "You're not going to believe that, right?"

Jima shrugged. "Who is that other guy?"

"Ask me something simpler. He's some kind of virus thingy. Not even Jack could explain that to me... I'm really clutching to that idiot ball, huh?" Sato slapped her palm onto her forehead and took an almost antique phone out of her labcoat pocket. She dialed a number and waited. "Come on, pick up."

Jima started calculating the amount of quirkiness in people in proportion to their intelligence quotient.

"Finally. Jack, you... you're hacking what? Okay, I'm not going to ask. Mainly because we have a problem." She flailed. "Tanoya has Dacoron." There was a moment of silence. "No, your ears are okay. Tanoya is roof hopping through Tokyo in Dacoron's body." She flopped back into the chair. "You know what, since I'm _not_ going to understand that, I'll put you on speakers." She laid the phone down and pushed some buttons.

"Hi, more tech savvy people in the room," the person on the phone, apparently Jack, said. "So I'm going to give you a few of Dacoron's specs. Anyone noting this down?"

Jima nodded. "Start."

What followed was a bunch of hard- and software specifications, rattled down rather quickly for a human.

"And that's it. I'm in a hurry now, so-" The phone clicked, signaling that he had hung up.

"Wa- oh." Sato's glance wandered to the floor again and she put the phone away.

"Maybe these specs can help us take Tanoya down," Kokubunji suggested. "I'm sure there's a way to do that without harming Dacoron."

Sato sighed. She looked over to Dita, then out of the window.

Jima hopped over the couch and sat down on the floor next to it. He rested his hand on Dita's face and looked at her for a moment. It was strange to see her connected to a system that wasn't him.

A little thread in the back of his consciousness calculated possible damage levels, depending on the time the file restoration program had run, its version number and several other factors. Still, it was just an approximation.

He closed his eyes and listened to the faint humming of her hard drive. Yuzuki had been right. At least that part of Dita still worked fine.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Aw, this one's rather short, but the break there felt appropriate.

-xox-

Something was off. Dita found her startup time to be more than twice as long as usual. Before even opening her eyes, she decided to do a short self-diagnosis.

Her hard drive was okay. Well, she would have noticed if anything was wrong with her data. Her non-persistent memory banks were okay too. Her CPU, though, could barely be considered working.

Dita replayed the last memories before her last shutdown. _The unknown persocom was holding her in a tight grip. She heard the faint click of a cable being plugged in and then_ things went fuzzy. He seemed to have invaded her systems and copied some files.

Finally, Dita opened her eyes. She was in a closed room now, on a couch. Next to said couch, there were a black-haired boy and a woman in a labcoat. Jima, on the other hand, was nowhere in sight.

Dita sat up, only to be pulled up from the couch and embraced tightly.

"I thought you had crashed, love." It seemed like Jima was okay.

"Jima, where are we? What happened?" She tried to push herself away, but somehow couldn't.

"It's not that difficult," he whispered and flopped onto the couch. "I brought you here."

"You should have taken me to the lab. I'm damaged. My CPU-"

Before she could finish, Jima tightened his embrace. "I know."

"The lab would-"

"Have kept you. I couldn't let them do that." He made a supposedly dramatic pause. "I need you."

Dita ceased to resist. "I... Jima..." She felt warmer than usual, but that had nothing to do with any potential feelings. Just a moment later, her automatic shutdown took over, preventing her from overheating.

-xox-

Again, Dita restarted. The startup time was the same, and she really didn't need to see the same diagnosis results again. It was bad enough that she had almost overheated right now.

She opened her eyes, staring up at Jima. "What's that thing lying on me?"

"An ice bag. You overheated." Jima didn't smile.

Dita sat up slowly, holding said ice bag towards her body. She looked around, noticing that Jima and her were the only ones in the room. "Where did they go?"

"They went do discuss the situation."

Immediately, Dita stood up and glared at Jima. "Why didn't you join them? This is important."

"Not as important as you, love." He laid his hand onto her shoulder and smiled.

"Can't you take things serious? Just once?" She turned towards the door. "He's a threat to the world. It's our responsibility to deal with him!" Her first action would have been running, but in her current state, that would have been counterproductive. Walking would have to do.

-xox-

"This is all so frustrating," Mikure muttered, her head leant against the wall.

"I understand you, Sato," Minoru replied.

"I'm not even sure it was Tanoya at all. I mean..." She trailed off. "I mean, what if Dacoron just snapped? For some reason."

"Hm." Minoru nodded. "We can't be sure about that."

Mikure sighed. "This is all a big heap of bull-" She looked up as the door opened. "Huh?"

Still holding the icebag to her chest, Dita entered the room. "I don't think it was your persocom."

"Waitwhat? How-"

"While the basic software was the same, his behavioral patterns were completely different the second time." She walked up to Mikure. "There is something you're not telling me. This... persocom, if you can call him that, is vastly different from everything I know."

Mikure took a step backwards. "Well, we're from a bit further away... so is Tanoya, the one we're looking for. I feel like we're missing something." She covered her face with her hand. "I just don't know wh- Dita, do you have access logs?"

Dita merely looked at Mikure for a moment. "They're confidential. But I see what you want to know..." The 'com turned towards the door, where Jima was standing now. "Most of my software was copied, as well as my data about the persocom Chi."

-xox-

Not much later, they were in the study again. Kokubunji was writing mails and Sato sat on the floor, pondering something. Dita, however, was busy glaring at Yuzuki.

"She won't try to hack me again, love," Jima commented from next to Dita.

Dita sighed. "How can you be so sure?"

"I just know." He smiled.

"Master Minoru. You have mail."

"That quick? From whom?" Kokubunji frowned.

"I... I can't tell." Yuzuki looked worried. "Shall I read it?"

Kokubunji merely nodded.

"Tanoya here. I'm in a gracious mood today, so I'm making you an offer. Drop it. As for you, Sato, leave and never return. I have no intent of following you, but this world is mine." Even with Yuzuki's neutral voice, the intented tone had come through.

Sato folded her arms. "Well, at least we know what he's planning to do."


End file.
